The start...

The idea was born, and we started to develop some pages. At first it was nothing more than some news from other pages and a link-list... we planned to have something like we have today, but we couldn't manage it at that point in time. So in July, 1997 www.OS-2.de took its place. The pages were only in German and were hosted at andiO's workplace at in-trier.de. The site was not accessed very often... I think we were proud when we first hit 2000 pageviews in one month.

Many people were involved in the project, but most had no time. Thanks again to Thomas Bruehl, Mike Haller, Alexander Mai, Arne Blankerts, Torsten Jaehnigen, Markus Hannig (in no order). This changed when Kerni (Andreas Linde) joined the team.

In 1998 the server moved to pmnet.uni-oldenburg.de where Macfly (Friedhelm Buescher) hosted the pages on a little OS/2 box called "Marcie". Unfortunately, we didn't make the kind of progress we'd hoped for -- so we reduced the size of the team, and started over with Macfly, Kerni and Markus Hannig.

We got the idea (suggested in over 100 emails) to provide all information in German AND English, so I registered OS2.org in August 1998. But boy, it was a hard site to develop - it took about 6 months to before we could launch it. See below. :)

The big step ahead...

But I think it was GOOD for the pages. The pages where already being administrated by a db-engine in REXX using normal files written by hamsta (Mike Haller). So it was pretty easy to add, edit and remove news on the webpages. The pages now had to be served in two languages, and the load was increasing, so Kerni decided to learn php while rewriting the database and all CGIs. I feared what would happen, but everything worked out for the best.

The technique...

After the online management system was somewhat finished, OS2.org was ready to launch. With the extra content came more traffic: we had 34.000 pageviews on OS2.org in February 1999.

We added more forums, older ones were completly rewritten and the access logfile got bigger each month. Unfortunately, at Kerni's place the connectivity was not the best and people began to bug us with tons of email when the server was not reachable.

What to do? We had no money for commercial housing. I managed to set up a host PC at Xlink - since then you may have seen their banner at the bottom of our pages :).

We needed a PC at least, so I invested some money, (thanks to my brother it was not that expensive ;), and we put the new server up. This was in August 1999 and we had grown over 150.000 pageviews each month, rapidly growing. I also managed to get the OS2.de domain, so the server is reachable via www.OS2.org, www.OS-2.de and www.OS2.de. You can't miss it ;).

The content...

Don K. Eitner was looking for a new place for his OS/2 application collection, and so SoftWhere!? section was started. Don did a tremendous job, filling the database with more than 1300 entries.

OS2.org also hosts two more helpful software sections: updates and drivers. These are two growing lists. The one with lots of (more than 100) software updates to OS/2, Java and more. The other, the driver section, includes a list of more than 100 drivers for OS/2. All the items in these sections are monitored, automatically, for updates once a day. So if there is, for example, a new fixpak detected, the news will automatically be generated and the pages will be updated right away!

Hardware is another new section on OS2.org. It is intented to get a place for everyone to search for the best OS/2 compatible hardware.

Other features are a HelpDesk and discussion forum, tips collection, links collection, OS/2 events calendar, surveys and much more.

All these sections need YOUR help. You are able to add new content EVERYWHERE on OS2.org, you can even write comments to nearly any part of the page and rate SoftWhere!?-, Hardware- and Links-Items.

The more you add, the more helpful it will be for OS/2 users surfing our site. OS2.org also a big search engine for most of the areas, so it should be easy to find the information you are looking for.

And we have some new people who have recently joined our team: Joerg Sievers from Warpsite helps us keep the news section up to date.

So, now we are in the year 2000 (hope you all made it). December was again a great month, OS2.org is growing up to over 25.000 provided pages and 277.000 pageviews altogether.

The future...

In fact we are still planning to re-introduce Zebra since Warpstock Europe. For those who do not know: Zebra is an old 7-8 GB BBS-Filearchive. Maybe we can add a mirror from Hobbes for the European people. Just send us suggestions (webteam@os2.org)!

An ftp-mirror of Netlabs and some other sites are in the works. LOS2CL (Large OS/2 Customer List) will come to us as well. We already provide daily builds and the alpha release of Project Odin for download.

As you might already have read, we cooperate with Adrian Gschwend from Netlabs. We think all OS/2 sites should work together and bundle their strength, to keep OS/2 going, and make life easier for everyone using this lovely system.

I hope we can provide this service for at least another 2.5 years!

Any comments on this article? Post them in our feedback forum.